The Malaysian government has approved the resumption of searches to try and recover the Malaysia Airlines plane that mysteriously disappeared more than 10 years ago in March 2014.
The proposal for a search operation by (US exploration company) Ocean Infinity is sound and deserves consideration,” Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke told the media.
Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur airport with 239 people on board. Although the destination of the flight was Beijing, data recorded by radars and satellites showed that the aircraft deviated from the flight path. Investigators believe the plane, a Boeing 777, crashed somewhere in the far southern Indian Ocean.
Another series of private underwater searches, also launched by Ocean Infinity, using underwater drones ended in May 2018 with no trace of the aircraft. The previous search, carried out in an area of 120,000 km2 in the southern Indian Ocean, off Australia, based on the analysis of the possible trajectory of the device, was suspended in January 2017, after also turning up no trace of the aircraft.
Ocean Infinity will receive $70 million – the same amount announced last time – if it succeeds in finding “substantial” remains, Loke said in a press conference.
On board the missing plane were more than 150 Chinese passengers, whose relatives are demanding compensation from Malaysia Airlines, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, which produced the aircraft’s engines, and from the Allianz insurance group, among others.
